Firebacks

Description: Canted rectangle; plain edges; broad horizontal fillet dividing the plate in two just above the side angles, with vertical fillets to top corners enclosing date and initials.

Notes: Uncharacteristically crude for the period.

Inscription: IS / 16 60

Description: Canted rectangular shape; plain edging with inset ?leather strap twisted round dowel (top and sides); top centre, date probably in stamped numerals; twisted leather strap saltire repeated three times across middle of plate; pair of stamped initials, formed of a Roman 'W' and a Gothic 'd', above each outer saltire.

Notes: Sotheby's sale London 27 November 2006, lot 324; formerly at Brunger, Kent (near Tenterden).

Inscription: 1610 / WD WD

Description: Fragment, left side missing; arched rectangular shape; fillet edging (top and sides visible); initials IG widely spaced in arch.

Notes: Previously at Bream Court Farm, Newland, Gloucestershire.

Inscription: I G

Description: Arched rectangle; arch with egg and dart, ovolo edging, resting on rectangle shoulders and sides with triple fillet edging, a single fillet edged panel beneath; bottom panel, guilloche pattern of 12; main panel: shield, helm, crest, coronet and mantling of the Wynter/Wintour family of Lydney, Gloucestershire; the initials above the date, both split by the helm and coronet; on either side of the shield, Ionic pilasters; above the rectangle shoulders, a scrolled bracket each side, supporting the arch.

Notes: Wynter: Sable, a fess ermine, in chief a crescent for difference; crest: out of a ducal coronet, or, a cubit arm in armour erect, proper, garnished of the first, in the gauntlet three ostrich-feathers. The arms are likely to be those of Sir John Wynter, who owned several furnaces in the Forest of Dean. Formerly at Watts House, Bishop's Lydeard, Somerset, and before that at The Priory, Taunton.

Inscription: I W / 16 30

Arms: Winter/Wintour of Lydney, Gloucestershire

Description: Rectangular; ovolo-moulded edging (top and sides); date between split initials across upper half of plate; two notches cut away for insertion of firedogs.

Notes: The ‘6s’ appear to have been moulded from a type of jemmy.

Inscription: g 1669 P [reversed]

Description: Arched rectangular shape; cavetto-moulded edging; no decoration.

Notes: A plain base board.

Description: Arched shape; twisted rope edging (top and sides); top centre, shield of impaled arms; date above shield; initials, in triad ('F above), to right of shield.

Notes: The arms are of Sir Peter Frecheville (1575-1634) of Staveley Hall, Derbyshire, and his first wife, Joyce Osborne, née Fleetwood (d.1619), whom he had married in the year of the fireback's casting; the blazon is as follows: (Frecheville) Azure, a bend between six escallops argent; (Fleetwood) Per pale nebuly or and azure, six martlets, two, two and two counterchanged (the tinctures, as painted, are incorrect). At the bottom of the fireback there appears to be the remains of a runner by which the molten iron flowed into the sand mould.

Inscription: 1605 / PFI [triad]

Arms: Frecheville impaling Fleetwood

Description: Rectangular with inclined sides, joined by scrolls to a pedimented top; twisted rope edging (top and sides); Garter enclosing the Tudor royal arms, with crowned lion and dragon supporters, helm with chapeau and lion crest, and mantling; rectangular date compartment at base; initials either side of crest.

Notes: The detached pediment is stylistically typical of the late-16th and early-17th centuries. The use of a chapeau or cap of maintenance in place of a crown above the helm is rare in this period. There is an excrescence on the casting over the jaws of the dragon caused by the pouring of the molten metal disturbing the sand mould.

Inscription: E R / Garter motto / 160[?0]

Arms: Tudor royal - Elizabeth I

Description: Canted rectangle; twisted rope edging (top and sides); a shield repeated five times, each bearing three arrows palewise, points down, with a molet (star) above the middle arrow, two over three.

Notes: Three arrows form the arms of several families, so identification of the arms is not possible without the associated colouring. The star is likely to be a mark of cadency, granted to a third son. Four rivets along the base may relate to earlier repair. The fireback was formerly at Chisenbury Priory, Wiltshire. A variant with three shields (W 740mm x H 480mm) was lot 530 at Brettells auction, Newport, Salop, 1 March 2022 and again as lot 457 on 2 May 2023.

Arms: Not known

Description: Quasi-arched rectangular shape; fillet edging, indented on the inner edge; pictorial representation of a phoenix rising from flames, date split either side of its neck; the lateral edges are wide in relation to the top, from which the arch rises from two loop and is surmounted by a fleur-de-lys; above each shoulder of the plate, a roundel.

Notes: The looped fillet edging is rarely seen and does not seem to be diagnostic of a particular pattern-maker.

Inscription: 16 77